A winning ticket has been sold in California for the Powerball jackpot worth an estimated $1.08bn, the sixth largest in American lottery history and the third largest ever for that game in particular.
The winning ticket for Wednesday night’s drawing was sold in downtown Los Angeles at Las Palmitas Mini Market.
On Thursday, more than a dozen cameras stood outside the small store, which is located in the heart of LA’s dense and bustling fashion district.
The store’s owner and her family were wearing yellow Powerball shirts and grinned as they pulled double duty: posing for photos and interviews and ringing up customers who stopped into store for snacks and water.
A sign hanging above the store’s entrance once read “millionaire” but on Thursday had its first letter covered, with a fresh “b” affixed instead.
Carolyn Becker, a representative for the California lottery, said the winner probably will not be known for weeks or months.
Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot beyond its earlier estimate of $1bn to $1.08bn at the time of the drawing, moving it from the seventh largest to the sixth largest US lottery jackpot ever won.
The winner can choose either the total jackpot paid out in yearly increments or a $558.1m, one-time lump sum before taxes. Lottery winners typically choose the one-time lump sum.
The game’s abysmal odds of 1 in 292.2m are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. The largest Powerball jackpot was $2.04bn.
That jackpot was won in November by a player from the Los Angeles area. The prize winner, Edwin Castro, went with the one-time lump sum payment, pocketing more than $997.6m.
Becker, the California lottery representative, said there was no magic answer as to why California had its second big jackpot in just a few months. She did say because of its population size, the state has a lot of players.
The winner for Wednesday’s drawing has 12 months to come forward.
Angelica Menjivar, the daughter of the store’s owner, Maria Menjivar, said her family had run the shop for seven years. “It’s like any other day, life goes on,” she said of the frenzy she and her family were in the midst of. “Money is not everything,” she said. “But we are happy for the winner.”
Lottery winnings are subject to federal taxes. But California is one of just eight states that do not tax lottery winnings. The state does however take 20% from the winning for the US Internal Revenue Service.
California law requires the identity of Wednesday’s Powerball winner to be disclosed, though that had not happened as of Thursday morning. The person with the ticket has 12 months to submit a claim, which will be vetted by lottery officials.
Before Wednesday’s drawing, the last time someone had won the Powerball jackpot was on 19 April for a top prize of nearly $253m. Since then, no one had won the grand prize.
Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
